Loki Lie-smith
by Stylus of Gold
Summary: As I fell from grace and Asgard into disgrace and the void, I lost more than my claim to kingship of Asgard: I lost my name. No longer Loki Odinson, I am now simply Loki. Loki Lie-smith.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1–Into the abyss I'll fall

"I could have done it father!" I pleaded, "For you!" I had loved him the whole time, I just had a different way of doing things. I was so sure he'd understand.

"No, Loki," he said and with that, I felt divorced from this world. I don't know now what came over me, what my plan was, but I let go of the staff and fell.

Now, when I say fall, don't think I mean like falling from a horse, or falling off a building or even falling from a plane. No, this was falling as I'd never fallen before and hope never to fall again.

I was falling off the world, and all around me was darkness and the stars, like the eyes of the night watching me go down further and further.

The cold was unbearable. Its frigid talons wormed their way into my frost giant heart, for this was not the cold of Jotenheim but of the void itself. It pervaded me, encircled and ensorcelled me till I was but a vessel for it, and still I did not die. I do not know what kept me going - perhaps it was my heritage, perhaps it was the will of the rightful king of Asgard, who knows. But keep going I did, till long after my last breath, till I had all but forgotten anything but the cold, the dark, and the void.

Some part of me latched onto the thing I would eventually call the tesseract, and for a moment I was myself, able to send one of my illusions out to find it and try to bring me to it. Looking at it, recognizing it for what it was, I coolly stated "Well, that's worth checking out", ready to try again for a throne.

Then I lost my connection to it mere moments after discovering its power, its power to save me, to give me the throne I so rightly deserved.

It felt just like the first time I fell, finding a moment of hope and then being consumed again by despair as I dropped further into the void. After several years (or was it minutes? I cannot say for sure), I saw it. A nebulous cloud of darkness suspended in the deeper darkness of the void, and as I landed, as I became Loki again, I looked up into a face, purple, wrinkled and utterly alien. As it twistedly smiled at me, the first emotion I knew since my second fall was fear.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2–Into a new face I'll step

I was lying in a cell, surrounded by other castaways who had come here. The cell was cold: it chilled my bones and iced over my thoughts, and the bars were palpable darkness. The cell block was fogged, so I could only see two feet in front of the bars. My fellow prisoners I could only hear, never see.

"So who are you?" I asked one of them. "Borri Eagleson," he responded, "Of Vanaheim. I was a tailor," his voice sounded confused, as if he's reciting what he was told, rather than what happened. "And you?"

I supposed I'd have to answer him, even if I could find no answer myself. Was I Loki Odinson? No, father had cast me out, and he wasn't even my real father anyhow. Loki of Jotenheim? Loki of Asgard? How can one be of a realm you only saw three times and tried to destroy? And I'd been forsaken by Asgard. Loki son of Alfie? No, I killed him and never really knew him anyway.

Eventually, I responded with the one title that remained to me. "I am Low. Low Key Lyesmith. I made Lye in Asgard."  
"Hmmph," grunted Borri, "Asgardian. They might want to talk to you then."

For days I waited there, sitting in my cell, plotting what I'd do once I got out. I had all these high aspirations, but time and again it seemed to me that my plans had holes in them. Nothing would work unless I could get out of this prison, and with an army too. Heimdall was too omniscient, Odin too wise to deceive again.

One day, I was let out of my cell, brought up out of the prison and through a maze of fog-filled, winding corridors by a silent guard. All my wits fled me as they brought me up into the dark chamber where the sky above was not full of clouds but nebulae, and stairs led up into a place where some part of my mind screamed at me to never approach.

As the robed one turned to face me, his bluish face almost completely concealed by his hood, I felt speechlessness for the first time in centuries.

"Who are you?" it asked me, it's hissing voice chilling my soul.  
After a two second pause which seemed like a hundred years, I responded. "I am Loki. Loki Liesmith."


End file.
